Tuesday, September 23, 2008

And while you're voting no...

I rely on the wisdom of others to explain financial markets, including the proposed $700 billion bailout proposed by Treasury Secretary Paulson. It counts as food policy, in the sense that it counts as everything policy and will dominate the U.S. fiscal situation for years to come, well into the new administration. Let me summarize the wisdom of people I trust on the Paulson plan. Tyler Cowen thinks it's awful. He quotes Matthew Yglesias (who claims to be drunk but seems to be blogging quite lucidly):

The plan is bad. But bad policies get enacted all the time. But we’re at a point now where congress is, allegedly, in the hands of progressive leadership. Simply put, if congressional Democrats manage to acquiesce in a plan that spends $700 billion on a bailout while doing nothing for average working people and giving the taxpayer virtually no upside in a way that guarantees that even electoral victory would give an Obama administration no resources with which to implement a progressive domestic agenda in 2009 then everyone’s going to have to give serious consideration to becoming a pretty hard-core libertarian.

It’d be one thing for a bunch of conservative politicians to ram a terrible policy through. Then we could say “well, if some progressives win the next election things will be different.” But if this comes through an allegedly progressive congress then the whole enterprise starts looking pretty hollow.

Politico says many economists are skeptical and Greg Mankiw thinks it's awful. Mankiw links to Yves Smith, who hates the plan and thinks you should too. You can see the pattern here.

Update 1:50 pm: I can't help adding this commentary, from ABC's Jack Tapper.

As the Bush Administration asks for close to a trillion dollars to prevent a worldwide financial cataclysm, here are some numbers you might find interesting -- courtesy of the ABC News Research Center and ABC News' Barbara Paulson.

How it affect you? Did you buy insurance? Did you buy mini note or bonds?

Who fault?

They only talk about how bad the crisis will be, but they did not give regulation measures…..

Now using tax payer money, $700B is used to save finance industry only, how about the industry that you are in.....retail industry, construction industry, manufacturing industry, R&D, electronics, electrical, mechanical, chemical, IT etc.... each industry will be able to enjoy at least $10B.......

The top management of the Public listed company ( belong to "public" ) salary should be tied a portion of it to the shares price ( IPO or ave 5 years ).... so when the shares price drop, it don't just penalise the investors, but those who don't take care of the company.....If this rule is pass on, without any need of further regulation, all industries ( as long as it is public listed ) will be self regulated......

Sign a petition to your favourite president candidate and ask for their views to comment on this......If you agree on my point, please let as many people know as possible....

Media and finance sector are the only two sectors ( hopefully Hacker can also ) which can overcome political incorrect power, so it is time to fine tune to the correct path, so hopefully media can united to report the truth......

CNN On Billionaire Warren Buffett told congressional negotiators that if they can't agree on a proposed financial bailout, the nation will face "its biggest financial meltdown in American history," two sources familiar with the talks.

Banking is critical to a capitalist society it facilitates the "capital" between savers and borrowers. The current financial crisis is due to the lack of regulation. Government was asleep at the regulation wheel. Now the taxpayers will have to pay for it. Otherwise, we'll all be back to growing our own food on small plots of land, which might not be a bad thing....

But my hope is that bailout plan provides for a sufficient equity stake in the companies that are bailed out, so when the housing and CDO and CDS markets recover, the Treasury will see a healthy gain and the taxpayer's money will be earned back.